dimanche 24 avril 2016

SolarImpulse - We have completed the Pacific Crossing!

SolarImpulse - Around The World patch.

April 24, 2016

Solar Impulse Airplane - Landing In Mountain View

Video above: Bertrand Piccard just landed at 6:44AM UTC on April 24st, 8:44AM CET, 11:44PM PT, in Moffett Airfield, California. He completed the Pacific Crossing! What a feat and a great way to resume to Solar Impulse flights around the world! He descended from the night sky, touching the runway, completing a smooth landing.

Bertrand above San Francisco

Si2 left Hawaii on 21 April at 6:15 local time and landed at the Moffett Airfield at 23:44 local time (UTC-7) completing the crossing of the Pacific Ocean with several world records. By attempting the first solar flight around the world, pushing back the boundaries of the possible, going into the unknown, and taking on a project deemed impossible by industry experts, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg want to support concrete actions for sustainability and show that the world can be run on clean technologies.

Image above: Bertrand Piccard has been lingering above San Francisco for 2 hours! Some of the coolest pictures we ever took with Solar Impulse, Si2 and Bertrand Piccard flying over San Francisco's iconic landscape, without using any fuel!

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.

The aircraft started its around-the-world journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It's on the ninth leg of its circumnavigation.

Breaking News: Golden Gate Flyover

Image above: First pictures from Bertrand Piccard above the Golden Gate, taken by our photographer flying with André Borschberg there.

The next flights are expected to take the aircraft to somewhere in the U.S. Midwest followed by JFK airport in New York, before beginning the transatlantic crossing to either Europe or North Africa.

Piccard and co-pilot Andre Borschberg take turns flying legs of the journey on the single-seat plane. Borschberg flew the stretch from Japan to Hawaii. They can take short naps while strapped in at the controls, and there is a modest toilet under the seat.

Si2 is in the mobile hangar on Moffett airbase

Image above: After 4 hours of intense unpacking, pushing, pulling, inflating... The mobile hangar is up! Congratulations to the ground crew team, that relentlessly worked on protecting Si2 after an intense day and landing operation.

The plane's ideal flight speed is about 45 km/h, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fibre aircraft weighs more than 2,200 kilograms, or about as much as a midsize truck.

The wings of Solar Impulse 2, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.